WHO/WHAT IS GOD

Sometimes we take for granted that people know what we are talking about. With that in mind I have been wanting to move you all through three questions.

1. Who am I?

2. Where do I belong?

3. How do I make a difference?

I do feel like we are making headway in that particular direction, but to be honest, only you can determine the successes or failures of this endeavour.

One of the results I believe we will find when we ultimately answer these three questions is that this is a group of young people who are willing to be the hands and the feet of the Body of Christ. We definitely need an active body. We need the hands and the feet of the body of Christ to be doing much more than they are here in North America.

While I was away at Briercrest, I heard a couple of alarming statistics.

One was that:

44% of Gen-Z’s in Canada think that it is wrong to tell someone about their faith in hopes that that person would come to believe in Jesus Christ.

Another alarming statistic was that

40-50% of kids who are connected to a youth group when they graduate from high school stick with their faith in college.

Even more alarming, out of those 40-50% only 20% of the college students who left the church during college had planned to do so during high school.The remaining 80 percent had intended to stick with their faith — but sadly did not.

A few things were established from these studies. But primarily three things stuck out to me.

1st - we, as a church in North America, are not doing a good job at working towards answering the three questions stated above.

2nd - The North American Church isn’t doing a good job at personalizing faith.

3rd - The North American Church isn’t doing a good job at training people to be the hands and feet of the body of Christ.

As I said, we have been working towards answering those three primary questions. Ultimately you need to answer those questions for yourself. All we, as church leaders, can do is try to help guide you.The final part we are also working towards behind the scenes, such as organizing a Calgary missions trip. But the middle part, I feel like we sometimes take for granted you all just have. We take for granted you all want a personalized faith in our God. We take for granted you even know who our God is.

One of my desires as we work to finish out the school year is for you all to be willing and able to share your testimonies.

I also am planning on inviting some congregants to come to share their testimonies. In doing so, we will hear who God is and how He is working in the lives of our peers and those who are part of our church at large.

But first, tonight, I think it is paramount that we start with who/what is God.

QUESTION: WHO DO YOU BELIEVE GOD IS?

As with most things it is always beneficial to start at the beginning. But let’s approach things from the perspective of what we know from what we are primarily taught in school.

What we are told by scientists is that before there was anything there were two atom’s traveling at a high rate of speed.

These atoms then collided and thus life exploded into existence.

Using science we can then begin to ask the question how?

I would like to personally start before the two atoms began to move. And to address their movement through science we need to look at Newton’s law of motion.

In all three statements describing Newton’s law of motion, there is a common denominator.

For a “body to move (or not move) there needs to be some sort of net force applied.”

In other words, there needs to be something or someone to push those atoms into motion. You cannot simply put two atoms next to each other and expect a radical reaction, you need to accelerate them.

That is why today scientists use a hadron collider to hurl atoms at each other while speeding those particles up to 11,245 times a second to get a reaction.

But the problem still remains. How did those two atoms speed up to the intensity that they did without a Hadron Collider? And without any net force

In 1953, Stanley Miller introduced the primordial soup hypothesis, in the experiment that formed his hypothesis he put four simple chemicals (circulated water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen) in a glass tube.

He was hoping to form some sort of sign of life from these chemicals.

Miller initially left these chemicals to their own devices but nothing happened.

So Miller then introduced heat and a spark into the “soup” which then produced amino acid, which is considered to be a building block of life.

However as recently as 2010 scientists have confirmed that the “soup” has no capacity for producing the energy vital for life.

In other words intervention is needed for the “soup” to do what it needs to do. Somebody needs to heat it, and to electrify it, and this is not conducive of life starting on its own.

Now even if life began on its own, we need to consider our solar system. Life needs a perfect setup to be able to survive. Our earth is set up just right. We are perfectly placed at just the right distance from the sun, we aren’t too far or too close. If we were too close the earth would be too hot, if we were too far it would be too cold. If we didn’t rotate just right our gravity wouldn’t be effective and if the moon wasn’t in our orbit we wouldn’t have the right tidal movement. Things are set up perfectly. In fact scientists describe space as hostile because in most every instance space and the planets that are in it are not suitable for life.

So what do we know? We know that you cannot simply just put two atoms beside each other and expect something to happen. We know that you cannot just put chemicals in a beaker and expect them to mix just right. We also know that

To find the perfect planet to host life as we know it on earth is incredibly difficult, in fact the chances of finding a perfectly habitable planet is 1 in 60 Billion.

If we apply science, as it demands that we do, we know there has to be someone who makes sure the conditions are just right. There has to be someone monitoring those atoms spinning around that tube 24/7. There has to be someone monitoring the temperature of the beaker and introducing electricity at just the right moments. There has to be someone who sets all things into motion.

So what is God? God is the being that set all things into motion, and God is in control of all things. God is the creator.

There is this scene that plays out in Job chapter 38 and 39. Job understandably spent his time whaling out in lament “why God, why?” And God comes back with an intense response.

Job 38–39 NIV

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth? They crouch down and bring forth their young; their labor pains are ended. Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds; they leave and do not return. “Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied its ropes? I gave it the wasteland as its home, the salt flats as its habitat. It laughs at the commotion in the town; it does not hear a driver’s shout. It ranges the hills for its pasture and searches for any green thing. “Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will it stay by your manger at night? Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness? Will it till the valleys behind you? Will you rely on it for its great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to it? Can you trust it to haul in your grain and bring it to your threshing floor? “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider. “Do you give the horse its strength or clothe its neck with a flowing mane? Do you make it leap like a locust, striking terror with its proud snorting? It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength, and charges into the fray. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; it does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against its side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground; it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’ It catches the scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry. “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high? It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night; a rocky crag is its stronghold. From there it looks for food; its eyes detect it from afar. Its young ones feast on blood, and where the slain are, there it is.”

The God of Abraham claim’s to be the God over all things. So why do I believe in this God? For me I began to believe, originally, because of the Bible. When scientists say that the earth was formless and covered in water, the Bible said it first. When scientists say that all of life began with a sudden burst of light, the Bible said it happened by God’s words first. Science continues to prove the Bible right. Archeology even continues to prove the Bible correct, recently scientist confirmed that the younger drias had to have been caused by a freak world flooding. When the evidence is before us and we dig into the word of God we need to allow God not man to show us who God really is. We need to decide for ourselves whether or not we are willing to accept this for ourselves.

QUESTION: WHO DOES THE BIBLE SAY GOD IS?

Group 1: Read Acts 17:24-28

Group 2: Read Colossians 1:15-20

Group 3: Read Genesis 1:1-2; 21; 24; 26-27;31

QUESTION: HAVING REVIEWED WHAT WE HAVE REVIEWED WHO DO YOU SAY GOD IS NOW?